Event Detail

This ASPPH Presents Webinar featured the work of two demonstration projects involving interdisciplinary education initiatives between public health and architecture:

The Drexel University Dana and David Dornsife School of Public Health in partnership with the Drexel University Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design (Led by the Drexel University Health and Design Team) project: Morton McMichael Schoolyard: Design and Placemaking as a Strategy to Improve Physical Activity in Elementary School Children.

The University of Kansas Medical Center Department of Preventive Medicine & Public Health in partnership with the University of Kansas School of Architecture, Design and Planning project: Access to Healthy Food and Neighborhood Walkability: Insights through Inter-Professional Curricula.

Moderator:

Ruth Gaare Bernheim, JD, MPH, William Hobson Professor and Chair, Department of Public Health Sciences, School of Medicine; Co-Director, The Institute for Practical Ethics and Public Life; Professor of Medicine, University of Virginia; Professor of Family Medicine; Council Member, Council on Education for Public Health; Chair, Population Health across All Professions Expert Panel

Morton McMichael Schoolyard: Design and Placemaking as a Strategy to Improve Physical Activity in Elementary School Children

Description: The overall goal of this inter-disciplinary project was to evaluate the impact of a newly designed sustainable schoolyard on children’s levels of physical activity. Presenters will describe the redesigned schoolyard and their research activities, highlighting the creation of an online data collection form to increase the efficiency of the data collection and the growth and development of their inter-disciplinary research team. One outgrowth of this project was the development of a new inter-disciplinary course offered for design and public health students in Spring 2016.

Speakers:

Yvonne Michael, ScD, SM, Associate Dean for Academic and Faculty Affairs, Professor of Epidemiology, Drexel University Dornsife School of Public Health,

Description: Through the planning of a cross-disciplinary, collaborative course between architecture and public health departments, the team developed tools that bring together a shared understanding of how design and health impact one another in two neighborhood communities—one resource rich, the other resource poor. The team has adapted and hybridized national protocols that assess food access and physical activity, as well as community based participatory research exercises, to investigate the relationship between urban design and health disparities. Through lessons learned in a joint course taught in Spring 2016, this adaptive process has generated unique, integrated disciplinary perspectives and innovative forms of collaboration through technology and boots-on-the-ground engagement. This approach has potential as both a resource to communities as well framing future perspectives amongst the students.

Speakers:

Shannon Criss, MArch, Associate Professor of Architecture, University of Kansas School of Architecture, Design and Planning

Megha Ramaswamy, PhD, MPH, Associate Professor, Preventive Medicine and Public Health, University of Kansas School of Medicine

Matthew Kleinmann, Doctoral Student, University of Kansas, School of Architecture, Design and Planning; Researcher, Community Health Council of Wyandotte County

These projects were funded through an ASPPH cooperative agreement with CDC to support interdisciplinary education initiatives between public health and architecture. Building on the work of the Population Health across All Professions Expert Panel, ASPPH was invited to join the Design & Health Research Consortium, conceived by the AIA Foundation, the American Institute of Architects (AIA), and Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) to advance university-led research in the area of design and health and to promote and accelerate the translation of research into practice.